Technical Field
The present technique relates to the field of data processing. More particularly, it relates to a conversion operation for converting a floating-point value into a value of a different format.
Background
A data processing apparatus may support values of a number of different formats. For example, values may have a floating-point format, in which the value is represented by a significand representing the significant bits of the value and an exponent representing the position of a radix point relative to the significand. Also, a value may have an integer format, representing an integer value with no fractional bits, or a fixed-point format, representing a numeric value using a fixed number of integer-valued bits and a fixed number of fractional-valued bits. In an apparatus supporting more than one format, it may be desirable to convert between the different formats and so a conversion operation may be performed. The present technique seeks to provide an improved apparatus and method for converting from a floating-point value to a value of a different format.